Dukasaur wrote:As we covered in History of Nuclear War I, U.S. government participation in nuclear research began in 1939, only two months after the Einstein-Szilard letter was written. Sufficient impetus to spend the enormous funds required to develop a practical nuclear weapon didn't materialize until after the Pearl Harbour attack brought the U.S. officially into WW II.By June of 1942, the effort was centralized under the U.S. Army. Its initial budget was $54 million, but eventually ballooned to two billion dollars by the end of the war. The first headquarters of the project was at 270 Broadway in Manhattan, and it became known as the Manhattan Engineering District, or "Manhattan Project."Phase 140 players in 5 groups will play 8-player games on the New York City map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.

We are now underway! Phase One games have been made and invitations sent out.

If you want to check anything: The rules and the list of phases is in Post One. The player list and links to all created games are in Post Two.

The final vote for SUN vs. FOG was a total blowout, with FOG crushing SUN with a vote of 13 - 4. This is quite a switch from my experience in the first tourney in this series, History of Nuclear War I, where SUN and FOG have been running neck-and-neck all the way through and changed back and forth a few times. Remember, if you didn't vote on signup you can still vote later and it will count for future rounds. You can also try killing off people whose votes you don't like...

On December 2nd, 1942, the world's first self-sustaining nuclear reaction was created at the University of Chicago. Enrico Fermi, the designer of the experiment, was finally able to demonstrate the power of nuclear fission, which he had predicted almost 20 years earlier. A now-famous indicator of the urgency in the effort is that Fermi's reactor was located under the bleachers in the University's football field, because a permanent facility being build for him in the Argonne Forest wasn't ready.Although the University of Chicago was a major star in the early days of the Manhattan project, it was soon eclipsed. Being focused on mainly theoretical and scientific questions, it steadily lost influence in a Manhattan Project that was mainly concerned with the practical engineering issues involved in building bombs. After the war, the Argonne lab would regain prominence, as a leader in peaceful applications of nuclear energy.Phase 235 players in 5 groups will play 7-player games on the Chicago map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.

Phase Two games have been created and invitations sent out! Good luck, everyone!

The elimination from Game 10572163 is in question. Risk_Averse was the first player eliminated. However, dmastrong has currently gone freemium and will have to be dropped from the tournament unless he renews, so Risk_Averse may be saved from the brink of extinction. I'll wait a couple days for an answer from dma before sending out the next phase.

Edit: Okay, I got an answer back from dmastrong. He will be leaving the tournament, so Risk_Averse gets to stay.

perchorin wrote:looks like i forgot to vote. I'll vote for sunny, it's always a thrill to see the destruction nukes cause.

Well, you SUNNY guys are doing a fine job of moving things in your direction. Of the five kills in Phase 2, Spartacus and Chapcrap were both FOGGY votes, the other three are NO VOTES. With perchorin's new vote, it stands at 8-6 for fog.

So, Phase 3 will still be foggy. Still, from the 11-4 at the beginning to 8-6 is one hell of a movement. Keep it going, and the sun-lovers may soon get their way!

By far the largest facility run under the umbrella of the Manhattan Project was the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Here, Uranium-235 was separated from Uranium-238 by a variety of processes, all of which were experimental and needed to be developed and improved "on the fly." The centrifuge method was a failure and was soon abandoned, but electromagnetic separation, gasseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion were all successful to some degree and contributed to the final stockpile of fissionable uranium. By 1945 there were 75,000 people working at Oak Ridge, and the K-25 gasseous diffusion plant was the single largest building on the planet.Phase 330 players in 5 groups will play 6-player games on the USA Southeast map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.

Absolutely Amazing!!!Three of the deceased were no votes, and two were FOG votes. So, the SUN lovers have achieved what looked impossible. I don't know if it was by design or by luck, but you have managed to kill off enough FOGeys that, starting from an 11-4 blowout in favour of fog at the beginning of the tournament, you have gotten the vote to 6-5 for sun!

Absolutely Amazing!!!Three of the deceased were no votes, and two were FOG votes. So, the SUN lovers have achieved what looked impossible. I don't know if it was by design or by luck, but you have managed to kill off enough FOGeys that, starting from an 11-4 blowout in favour of fog at the beginning of the tournament, you have gotten the vote to 6-5 for sun!

Amazing job of pushing your faction forward, I must say!

Here comes the sun and I say "it's alright"

Silvanus wrote:perch is a North Korean agent to infiltrate south Korean girls

Dukasaur wrote:The British nuclear effort codenamed "Tube Alloys" was centred at Manchester and Birmingham Universities, but to protect the laboratories from the threat of German bombing, they were moved overseas to Montreal.The relationship between the Allied efforts went through three phases. Before 1942, there was pretty much open communication between the two teams. In 1942, when the U.S. Army took over the American effort, a portcullis of secrecy slammed down and no communication with the British team was permitted. Then, in 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Quebec Agreement and full co-operation resumed.Tube Alloys had absorbed fleeing French scientists, as well as Jewish scientists from Germany, Poland, and Hungary, all fleeing Nazi persecution. It thus had a brilliant talent pool, but what it lacked was resources. Fighting for its life, Britain simply didn't have the cash to mount a programme like the Manhattan Project, or anything remotely close to it in magnitude. Slowly but surely, despite a brilliant start, Tube Alloys became a mere auxiliary to the much larger Manhattan Project.The ZEEP reactor at Chalk River north of Ottawa was built to produce plutonium for the American bombs, but it was completed too late to perform that role, first going online on September 5th 1945, a week after the war ended. ZEEP did become a world leader in peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and was the prototype for the successful CANDU nuclear design.Phase 425 players in 5 groups will play 5-player games on the Canada map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.

Dukasaur wrote:Phase 5 While possibly 90% of the expenditure and employment of the Manhattan project was devoted to the manufacture and refining of fissionable materials, the crucial remaining 10% was devoted to the construction and delivery of the bombs themselves. Most of this was done in New Mexico at Los Alamos, the "city in the desert" codenamed Project Y.The gun-type uranium-based bomb (eventually used at Hiroshima) was considered too simple to fail, and therefore not tested at all prior to use. The implosion-type plutonium based bomb (like the one eventually used at Nagasaki) was far more complex, and the bomb designers felt it had to be tested. Thus, on July 16th, 1945, the worlds first man-made nuclear detonation occurred at the Alamogordo Bombing Range near San Antonio.Phase 520 players in 4 groups will play 5-player games on the USA Southwest map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.

Phase 5 games have been created and invitations sent out. Good luck, everybody!